Total running time of 45:30, with total distance run of approximately 6.69 miles (average pace of 6:48/mi) according to the course tool.
TLDR version: I ran a speed workout 3 x 5 min hard, and 3x 1 min hard, 45 min per day during the first half of the week.
Full version: All week I have been running 45 min per day, but only running easy. I strained one of the intercostal muscles in my ribs about a week and a half ago and it has hurt to breathe deep or blow my nose, etc. Thankfully this hasn't happened in a couple years as for a while I was straining an intercostal muscle once every few months. So, for the first half of this week I just kept things easy. I also felt like I ran my runs too fast last week, even though I didn't run any speed workouts after getting sick, and I felt like I needed to slow things down a little.
Today, as I started my run I could tell that my legs were feeling snappy so I decided to run a speed workout. I ran the same loop around Alpine that I ran 3x last week. This loop contains a lot of hills, and I measured it out on the course tool at 6.03 miles. Last week I was running this loop in around 45 minutes, and today I expected to run it at least a few minutes faster.
For the speed workout I ran 3 x 5 minutes hard/3 minutes easy, followed by 3 x 1 minute hard/3 minutes easy (only 2.5 minutes easy after the last segment as I had finished the run), starting at the 10 minute mark of the run. The first repeat had about 4 minutes of mostly steep uphill, with about 1 minute of fairly steep downhill (approximate net elevation gain of 115 ft, with total climbing of 158 ft during .76 mi according to course tool). The second rep was almost exclusively downhill (moderate to steep) until the last 20 seconds when it turned uphill again. The last 5 minute rep again had about 4 minutes (mostly steep) uphill and 1 minute of downhill. For the 1 minute reps, the first was downhill until about the 45 second mark and then turned uphill. The second was exclusively downhill (very fast as the grade was pretty consistent). I made it back to the house during the following recovery to complete the loop in 40:57 (3:14 for the last 0.5 mile even though only 1 minute was run hard) for an average pace of approximately 6:47/mile. At 42 min I ran the last 1 minute rep (about 40% downhill and 60% uphill), before turning around once more to head back to the house.
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